


not going home

by justbecauseyoubelievesomething



Series: Writer's Month 2020 Prompts [20]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Arguing, Co-leaders, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Loss, Oceanverse, The Delinquents, mentions of past character deaths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:28:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26159524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justbecauseyoubelievesomething/pseuds/justbecauseyoubelievesomething
Summary: After reaching the ocean, the delinquents have plenty of time to confront their own feelings.A Bellarke one-shot for Writer's Month 2020. Prompt 20: loss.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin
Series: Writer's Month 2020 Prompts [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1863823
Comments: 3
Kudos: 30
Collections: Writer's Month 2020





	not going home

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the song "Not Going Home" by Great Good Fine Ok. I definitely recommend listening to it too! The whole song was my inspiration for this Bellarke interaction.

It takes three days of wandering south along the coast for them to reach the stones in the sand. The outcropping juts out into the waves so that the crash of the sea is a constant drone behind the delinquents murmured conversations. Pine trees loom overhead, their boughs hanging a heavy green ceiling for them to camp under. They spread out among the stones, and for once not a single delinquent tries to climb the smooth rocks or dares one another to knock the stones over. There’s an inherent sense of tranquility, like they’re standing in the midst of an altar from another time and another people.

Octavia wanders up and down the tree line almost a half mile distant. Clarke can barely see the bright red of her tattered tank top against the dark forest backdrop. Bellamy has been in a state of barely concealed shock and anger for the past few days and Octavia’s insistent isolation isn’t helping. But Clarke secretly hopes that she’ll find the person she’s waiting for, that he’ll come bounding through the trees to join them.

Or maybe he already disappeared. To join the mysterious Luna. Maybe he abandoned them.

They stay at the stones for another three days. The weather is growing colder by the minute. The chill of the ocean spray is constant in the air. Clarke can’t find a single pair of underwear that’s not soaked through. The skies remain grey with the threat of winter and Clarke worries. Octavia paces. And Bellamy broods.

The mood is falling quickly. Too quickly. And Clarke finally admits to herself that she’s afraid. Somewhere deep in the pit of her stomach, the fear is growing.

She approaches Bellamy on the third day. He’s standing farther along the beach by himself, where the sand gives way to bulky pebbles. The rocks clack unevenly under her boots alerting him to her presence, but he doesn’t even turn to acknowledge her.

Clarke draws even with his shoulder and looks out across the grey wave caps, trying to see what he’s seeing. An incoming storm? An impassable barrier? A mystery that’s beyond all of them?

The wind whisks their hair back from their faces and Clarke has to close her eyes for a split second against the sharp spray carried on the breeze. 

“Cold out here?” she finally asks, feeling her own skin break out in goosebumps.

Bellamy shrugs one shoulder, lips still pursed moodily.

Clarke nudges him with her elbow and he finally glances at her.

“If you’re cold, go sit by the fire,” he says gruffly.

She huffs and leans against him again, this time with more weight.

“Okay, what’s up with you?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean…”

He flirts and smiles and makes her feel at home. Then he withdraws.

That’s the selfish voice in her head.

Clarke swallows the lump in her throat and keeps her voice light. “I mean, you’ve looked like a thunderstorm for almost a week.”

Bellamy grunts softly and Clarke bristles.

“Okay, now you’re just trying to get on my nerves,” she snaps before she can think.

Bellamy flinches at that and she sees the way his jaw tightens. But he doesn’t turn to her, keeps his eyes trained on the horizon.

Then finally, “Sorry.”

She knows she shouldn’t push. But now a week of tired fear boils up in her throat and she shoves him with both hands this time, actually making him stagger a step back. He whips to face her, eyes alight with anger. Good.

“Stop brushing me off, Bellamy!” she yells. “God, after everything… you can’t just cut me out like this. We’re still in this together!”

His eyes flash. “You think I don’t know that?”

“Well, then act like it!”

His lips curl in a snarl and Clarke actually takes a step back. “I AM acting like it! I’m TRYING to hold it together!”

“Trying to hold it together?!” she laughs, and it occurs to her that she’s nearing hysterical. “Everyone looks to you and you haven’t been here! I… I look to you!”

The stuttered confession surprises her but Bellamy doesn’t even look like he understands the weight of her words, face still drawn and dark.

“I never asked to be in charge!” he yells. He flings his arm back towards the campsite. “I never asked for any of them to look at me the way they do. I just… it was all for Octavia. It was just to protect…”

He snaps his jaw shut again, cutting off his own rambling. “You know what, just forget it?”

“No!”

They stare each other down, fire leaping between their gazes.

“You might not have asked for this, but you’re the one who stepped up and took charge,” Clarke snaps. “You’re the one who inspires them now. You have to live with that.”

He chuckles, low and grating and not Bellamy-like at all. Clarke suppresses the shudder that threatens her nerves at the sound.

“I have to live with a lot of things, apparently,” he says dryly. “Why don’t you just go back to playing house with the rest of them,  _ Princess _ .”

The nickname cuts deep, his tone lancing and poisoned, and Clarke resists the urge to punch him in the jaw.

“How dare you?”

He raises an eyebrow at her as she continues.

“How dare you question my commitment to them?” she yells. “I’ve been here with you, every step of the way. Whatever you think you’re trying to carry on your own out here, you don’t have to!” She reels herself back, takes a breath. “You don’t have to,” she repeats softer.

Bellamy blinks and then looks back out over the ocean.

“Clarke…”

Her anger is fading quickly now, leaving her with a bone-deep weariness instead. She lays her hand on his arm and this time he doesn’t shift away.

“Bellamy…” He firms his lips together and she presses her hand against his skin a little more insistently. “Let me help carry it.”

He blinks a few more times, faster. “We had to just leave them…”

It takes her a second, but then it clicks. “They’re buried. Peacefully.”

“But…” He seems to struggle for words for a second, shoulders pinched. “They were family. All of them.”

Clarke closes her eyes, Wells’ face flashing before her mind’s eye. “I know that.”

“I failed them, Clarke.” He’s losing his composure, finally. She can hear the panic in his throat. The sob threatening to break through his chest. “They’re dead and now I have to live with that.”

She doesn’t think, she just moves. Wrapping her arms as far around his broad shoulders as she can reach, pulling him as close to her as she can manage. His head falls to her shoulder and she rests her cheek against his hair, letting him bury his emotions in the safety of her shadow.

They stand like that for several minutes, the cold wind and spray soaking the backs of Clarke’s legs. Funny how she still feels warmer than she has in days.

When Bellamy pulls back, eyes dry and rimmed in red she lets her fingers linger on his forearms. He doesn’t seem to mind.

“ _ We _ have to live with it,” she says gently. “We can do that together too.”

He nods hesitantly, but he doesn’t withdraw.

“I think… I think I’d like to do something for them,” he mumbles. “Something for them to be remembered. Just in case we don’t go back.”

Clarke feels her own eyes fill with tears and she smiles. “I think that’s a good idea.”

They build a tower of stone of their own, in the ring of others around the campsite. One smooth stone for each delinquent left behind. They all pitch in, carving names of those they lost. Friends and family and lovers. Octavia even joins them, leaving the trees behind, to pick out a suitable stone for Atom’s memorial.

That night they throw more wood on the fire than they need and let it roar higher than their heads. They talk about the family they lost and they dance and they laugh in their honor. And Bellamy sits in the shadows, but this time Clarke sits with him, sharing the grief between them.

That’s the night that Luna finally comes to them, across the waves. The night they’re given something a lot like hope. The night everything changes again.

But for now, Clarke let’s Bellamy lay his head in her lap and she runs her fingers through his tousled hair and feels his breaths grow deeper with sleep and she carries the grief for the both of them.


End file.
